KRISTEN IVERSEN grew up close to a nuclear weapons factory. The Rocky Flats plant in Colorado was the only US site that built plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs: chunks of radioactive metal about the size of a softball.
In her superb memoir, Full Body Burden, Iversen interweaves her own compelling autobiography with a history of Rocky Flats. Her prose combines perceptive lyricism and stark brutality.
Iversen struggled with an alcoholic father and a mother in denial, and found solace riding horses far out into the Colorado wilds. She paid little attention to Rocky Flats until she took a job there,…
